The Wake of War
by Terra Bird
Summary: LEO didn't mean to blow up an Estonian shop. REYNA is having a trouble rebuilding the Twelfth Legion after Octavian's reign. HAZEL is concerned about her brother. NICO is having trouble staying put. PERCY gets word from an old friend and really hopes it doesn't involve another giant crocodile.
1. Chapter 1

The Wake of War

LEO

_Leo wasn't sure what he had expected after he and Calypso had taken to the skies_. A romantic dragon ride over the clouds, "A Whole New World" playing in the background, maybe a sunset they could fly happily into. He hadn't been counting on a flock of Stymphalian birds to show up and ruin their evening.

The sun was setting when they showed up, their Celestial bronze beaks and metallic feathers glinting malevolently in the dying sunlight. They swarmed the two of them, circling their heads and destroying the tranquil atmosphere. Personally, Leo preferred doves for romantic kinds of things, but a demigod could only be so lucky.

There were only six of them, but they were vicious man-eating creatures who, like Leo, had had their night ruined by a few flying beasts. They were clearly not happy and definitely out for blood.

"Oh come on!" Leo complained as he clocked a metallic bird in the head with his hammer. Luckily, his tool belt had survived the blast that had destroyed Gaea. "I just came back to life _this morning,_ and already I'm getting the charcoal beaten out of me!" He hammered another bird in the chest.

Calypso, for all of her time spent in a secluded paradise with no one but her invisible servants and the occasional demigod heartthrob of the century for company, was not too shabby a fighter. From one of her suitcases, she retrieved a washboard and began to beat the Stymphalian birds out of her way. "I am a _goddess!_ You will not touch me!" she exclaimed.

_That's Calypso for you,_ Leo thought. He was pretty sure he fell more in love with her with every brutal strike she landed on the bloodthirsty birds.

But really, the Stymphalian birds needed to calm down. They were loud and obnoxious and Leo didn't really need that right now. Dying and coming back to life was tiring and he could already feel a migraine coming on. He beat another bird upside the head.

Three of the birds had been beaten until their beaks were dented and had decided to leave them alone. The others had managed to evade severe damage up to that point.

A flash of bronze was the only warning Leo got to a barrage of blows from one of the birds. He deflected most of the attacks, but one got close enough to break his skin. It was only a light scratch and wasn't fatal, but it stung like crazy. He made a mental note not to let them get close like that again.

Calypso managed to beat another bird out of the sky. Her washboard was beginning to dent and she had a bruise on her forearm. Her hair was falling out of it's bun. Even with the murderous glint in her eyes, Leo found her stunning. Unlike the practiced hotness of the Aphrodite kids, Calypso was someone who was just naturally better looking than everyone. Except himself, of course. Leo was simply the hottest of the hot.

Leo remembered all the times he and the crew of the _Argo II_ had fought off monsters together. His heart ached suddenly. He couldn't imagine how they felt right now, thinking he was gone for good. He had always been one for pranks, but this wasn't something he joked about. They would know he was seriously not coming back. He imagined his funeral, Jason and Piper and Hazel and all of his friends dressed in black, wiping tears from their eyes as they watched his shroud burn in the Camp Half-Blood fire pit, crying for the seventh wheel of a journey that had ended too quickly. He hoped they were all okay, or alive at least. He didn't think he could bear it if he had died and come back and Jason or Piper had not.

He pushed the thought out of his mind as he clobbered another Stymphalian bird. Priorities, he reminded himself. He wanted to show Calypso the world, and that couldn't happen if they were both eaten alive by killer birds from some Alfred Hitchcock film.

One left, and of course it had to be the biggest. To be honest, Leo was kind of sick of boss battles. Considering he had destroyed the ultimate goddess in his final moments, however long ago those may have been, Leo thought he should have been allowed a break.

Calypso took the thing out with her washboard, saving Leo the trouble. Instead of falling out of the sky, this one dissolved into dust, leaving it's Celestial bronze beak behind. It fell into Calypso's bag, but Leo plucked it up quickly and stuck it in his tool belt. He'd learned from his experience with Apollo that any flotsam and jetsam he could pick up had potential use, and the bronze beak looked like just the thing he could need later. What for he wasn't sure, but he had once said that thinking got in the way of being nuts, so he decided not to worry. After all, he had gotten a kiss on the cheek out of it.

Calypso sighed, tucking a strand of hair that had come loose during the fight behind her ear. She had a cute ear.

"Honestly, Valdez, must you keep a souvenir for everything?" Calypso complained, rubbing the bruise on her arm.

"I don't know why you're complaining, babe." Leo sang. "That little crystal from Ogygia got me back to you, so I would be grateful instead."

Calypso rolled her eyes, but Leo knew she wasn't really mad. Underneath her collected and irritable exterior, he could tell she was more excited than she had been in a long time. It was about time someone got her out of the house.

She put her washboard back in her suitcase and wrapped her arms around his waist again. Festus wavered in the air. Leo patted his side comfortingly. "Just a little longer, buddy." he promised. Festus creaked weakly in reply.

Poor Festus. Happy the Dragon hadn't gotten a chance to rest since Ogygia, and he was desperately due for repairs. His entire breastplate was smelted and twisted, just barely protecting the wiring underneath. His left front leg was twisted all the way around at the joint, which couldn't have felt good. Nevertheless, he endured the flight over the clouds and carried Leo and Calypso to freedom. Judging by the recent Stymphalian bird attack, they were out of Ogygia territory and home free.

At least, until they began to descend rapidly through the clouds.

"Festus!" Leo exclaimed, holding on tight to his beloved dragon. Festus creaked with alarm, informing Leo of his engine failure through Morse code.

From this height and without proper materials, Leo couldn't do much about their free fall. They pushed through the clouds, the ground hurtling towards them at an alarming pace. Ugh. How many times had Leo been in this situation now?

"Leo!" Calypso screamed over the wind in his ears. "Do something!" She had her arms wrapped tightly around him now, so if Leo could do anything he wouldn't have been able to.

"Hang in there, Festus!" Leo cried, ignoring the goddess screaming behind him. "It's gonna be a rough landing!"_ I am _not_ losing you this way again, _he added silently. He was not having another repeat of Omaha. To think that had only been . . . well, he didn't know how long it had been, but it felt like forever ago. Could have been a month or two, probably longer. But back then, when he had first lost Festus. . . . Leo had never felt more broken. _You're the best thing I ever fixed._

Ugh, dying must have made Leo into a melancholic numbskull or something, because he would never get this nostalgic during a life or death situation. But as the ground got closer, Leo could see his life flashing before his eyes all over again, an experience he had hoped he wouldn't have to repeat ever again. Was that all he was? A pile of skin and bones filled to the brim with memories of friends and battles and loss and all that sappy stuff? Was that why the physician's cure worked? It brought life back to an old body. _Everything can be reused._

Leo's ADHD must have gone dormant if these were the things he was thinking about. He blinked away the memories and shouted at Calypso to hold on. She replied with a shriek, which was all Leo needed for motivation. Everything could be reused, but not if the mechanic wasn't there.

Festus spiraled towards the earth, extending his wings and trying to level them out. It didn't help much, but it did carry them just above a beautiful bay surrounding an unfamiliar country. When they crash landed, Festus only sank into the water to his chest. However, the momentum kept them going, spraying water all over Leo, Calypso, and any unfortunate natives who may have been taking a pleasant evening stroll. Miraculously, Calypso's suitcases survived the experience without any damage. They were one hundred percent dry.

Festus's control panel told them they were in Tallinn, Estonia. Of all of the random places to end up, they ended up in freaking Estonia.

Leo didn't have a problem with Estonia. He hadn't even heard of the place until now. Its name kind of sounded like a disease, but otherwise it seemed fine. The only problem being Leo had no idea where on the entire planet they were. They could have been in some Canadian providence for all he knew.

Calypso sat up, peeling Leo's soaking and tattered shirt from her face. "Great job, Valdez." she muttered sarcastically. "What's next? A plunge into a volcano? Maybe we can crash land in a swamp, how does that sound?"

Leo sat up from Festus's neck, his hair dripping wet. "Sorry, Princess. Next time I blow a primordial goddess to smithereens, I'll be sure leave you behind in Ogygia so you don't get splashed."

Festus creaked and apology beneath them. "It's okay, big guy." Leo assured him. "Let's get you fixed up. Can you drag yourself over to that harbor over there?"

The bronze dragon carried them over to the dock, crowding the other boats. Luckily, at this time of night, things weren't too busy, but Leo didn't want to push their luck. If he could fix Festus by morning, he would be lucky enough as it was.

_Come on, dad. I know you're up there. Could a kid get a little help here?_ Leo prayed silently, hopping off of his dragon's back and helping Calypso with her bags. _I promise I won't tell the other Hephaestus kids that you did,_ he added.

There wasn't an answer. Leo sighed and watched as Festus did his best to clamber out of the water and onto the dock. His joints were creaking and something around his chest kept clanking around. The pitiable sight made Leo feel even worse.

Everything seemed great the moment he was revived just outside Ogygia. He cheated death, rediscovered an island that could only be found once and got the girl of his dreams with a magic dragon in tow. He had literally had the perfect ending heroes were supposed to have. Then the metal birds attacked, Festus lost altitude and they crash-landed in some Estonian bay. Even better was that fact that things could only get worse from there.

"Come on," Leo suggested. "We need to go find a repair shop to buy materials. Maybe we can figure out the date." He hoped Festus wouldn't attract too much attention without him. The last thing he needed was a giant bronze dragon on the cover of the Estonian newspaper, or whatever the Mist tricked the mortals into seeing.

Leo led Calypso away from the dock, but the initial shock from the landing must have evaporated. She gazed delightedly at every building, her head flicking around so quickly Leo was afraid she would break her own neck. Leo, who had hoped her first taste of the world outside of Ogygia would go a bit more smoothly with a little more sightseeing and a lot less getting lost, was getting concerned. What if something happened in Estonia that slowed them down? What if Calypso got so enthralled by the outside world that she completely forgot Leo and ran off with an Estonian mechanic with better machines? What if they got captured by Laestrygonians because Estonia happened to actually be a Canadian providence and they were eaten alive?

Okay, so that one was a little far-fetched. Also, this place seemed a little different than Canada. The buildings were whiter and had a more European accent.

Calypso hadn't strayed from his side despite her curiosities, so Leo figured he was safe from the second scenario. As for the first, well, Leo was a demigod. Danger and trouble followed him like he was magnetic. Not to mention he had a goddess and a giant bronze dragon following him around. It wasn't quite the lucky three demigods that typically teamed up for quests, but Leo's previous quest experience hadn't been any closer.

_We'll just have to get lucky,_ Leo thought, which of course meant nothing was going to go his way.

Leo soon found out he hated Estonia for a multitude of reasons other than the fact that it was a small country located in Europe. For one thing, no one spoke English _or_ Spanish. Everything was written in Estonian and Russian, which really bothered Leo's Greek brain. For another thing, there didn't seem to be a mechanics shop anywhere, and if there was, Leo could never find it due to the disorderly arrangement of the streets and buildings. Seriously, the architect needed to invest in a ruler or something. Annabeth would have lost her mind.

So what had originally been a search for a Home Depot turned into a scenic tour through Tallinn, Estonia. Leo pretended he knew what he was doing, pointing fingers at particular buildings and giving them the ridiculous names his dyslexia tried to translate the words into. "That's called the Latragia," he announced, pointing do a tall white building with a top tier constructed of bright orange brick, "and the building next to it is called Grunglesponge."

Calypso knew he was joking, of course, but she humored him. She laughed at the dumb names he came up with and ignored the stares they got from strangers. Leo watched her eyes light up every time they turned a corner. She looked so much younger than an immortal goddess like this, like some Hephaestus kid who had just rediscovered Bunker Nine.

They continued on like that for a while, almost completely forgetting the real reason they were scouring the city. It didn't matter to Leo that they were lost in Tallinn. They could have been in any city, in any country on any continent and it wouldn't matter. Calypso didn't seem to mind either, not that she would have much of an opinion. Leo figured that, as long as they were screwing up together, they wouldn't screw up too badly.

As they walked, they passed more buildings, some with smaller French labels. Leo had grown up speaking Spanish, but the languages were so similar that Leo had little trouble understanding what the signs said, excluding his dyslexia. One vaguely translated to "Garden Store" from what he could read. He didn't think much of any of these establishments until they passed a small, run-down old shack of a store crunched snugly between two grandiose buildings. It seemed out of place for such a clean neighborhood and normally Leo would have ignored such an insignificant little store. But for some reason, the way it faded as soon as he looked away caught his attention. Unless he was looking directly at it, the store wasn't there. He couldn't see it through his peripheral vision.

Leo's curiosity got the better of him. He strayed from the path, approaching the old building. Calypso followed impulsively, but she seemed less than enthusiastic. Leo approached the building slowly, glancing up at the old wood sign nailed to the roof. There were three languages on the sign and, because none of them were French, Leo was surprised he could understand one. In large, unreadable letters was the Russian translation, below that something Leo recognized as Latin. At the very bottom was a Greek translation that read: _Ilmarinen's Forge._

"I found what we've been looking for," Leo announced, but for some reason he found himself hesitating to enter. Maybe it was because Calypso was hanging back, or maybe it was because there was a Greek _and_ Latin translation. On top of that, Leo was a considerably powerful demigod traveling with a goddess-nymph—they were bound to attract some attention. This building obviously had some Mist or something shrouding it from the view of curious mortals, but Leo knew that if you ever found exactly what you were looking for in a foreign country, then you should probably turn around and get away from whatever it was as soon as possible.

So Leo did the logical demigod thing: he entered the shop.

The inside of the store was cluttered and dimly lit. Shelves lined the walls, the metal pieces and parts coated in metal. To the left was a shelf with a sign that said "ON SALE" in the same three languages as the sign outside. That shelf was stockpiled with competed sculptures of all different shapes and sizes. There were a few bronze flowers, an expansive array of silver animals, but Leo didn't see any pieces of gold. It was the one metal he didn't see represented in the room. Some of the creations around the room seemed to follow him with their eyes, but Leo waved the idea away. He wondered what kind of blacksmith would run this shop. Maybe a fellow son or daughter of Hephaestus? Obviously, the owner had some affiliation with the gods if his shop was shrouded in Mist. Maybe Hazel wasn't the only follower of Hecate.

Calypso stayed close to him, like she felt something was off. Leo couldn't place it, but he knew something wasn't right too. The name "Ilmarinen" didn't sound familiar, and it didn't sound very Greek. But Leo could be wrong—he usually was. Still, something here put him on edge.

There was a loud and sudden clanging noise, like someone was hammering a helmet from the Camp Half-Blood armory. Calypso jumped and the hairs on the back of Leo's neck stood on end. He kept a hand near his tool belt and approached the back of the store carefully. No one stood at the front desk, but a golden light glowed from an open doorway to a room in the back. The clanging got louder as they neared.

Leo moved toward the door, but Calypso grabbed his hand to pull him back. Leo jolted to a stop, turning to look at the goddess. Her gorgeous eyes held a warning. "Leo, what are you doing?" she whispered harshly. "You cannot just walk in!"

Leo opened his mouth to reply, but just then the clanging stopped. There was a shuffling noise beyond the threshold of the back room and a shadow loomed in the doorway. Heavy footsteps fell, getting closer. Leo and Calypso back up instinctively, gripping each other's hand like a lifeline.

_This is stupid,_ a voice in Leo's head argued. _You came in here looking for parts for Festus. There's nothing wrong with this place! Don't a such a baby._

That would have been good advice for a person smarter than Leo. Sadly, Leo was preoccupied by the advancing shadow in the doorway and was definitely not a son of Athena.

He pulled his hammer from his tool belt as the person emerged from the back room.


	2. Chapter 2

The Wake of War

LEO

_Yeah, so the guy had trouble fitting through the doorway._ But hey, Leo wasn't going to judge. Sometimes, he had trouble just getting _to _the door. The life of a mechanic was rough.

Leo had never seen the man in his life. He was tall and burly and resembled his father in some ways, but there was no real family resemblance. He looked like one of those fifty-year-old weirdos who got hyped up on steroids and lifted weights for a living. He had a scratchy looking nest of a beard growing on his face and small dark eyes that glinted strangely in the dim light. Well, strangely wasn't the best term, but it was the best Leo could do for the moment. There didn't seem to be anything cruel about this man, but there was definitely something dangerous about him.

The man wore a grubby brown tunic, but Leo suspected it had once been white. His hands were calloused and strong but his fingers seemed built for careful detail. His feet were bare and just as filthy as his hands. They were also the size of Leo's head.

When the man was finally able to squeeze through the threshold, he turned his attention to Leo and Calypso, who stood suddenly unafraid by his side. She didn't act like she knew this man, but a power radiated from her that gave Leo confidence. Maybe this was, like, a romance thing? Is this what Jason and Piper felt like when they confronted an enemy together? Just the thought of his friends made Leo all the more eager to get home.

The man grumbled something in a language that Leo couldn't understand. It might have been Russian.

"Sorry," Leo replied slowly. "We're not from here. We don't speak, um, Russian."

Calypso agreed. "I speak many languages, but Russian is not one of them."

The man studied them for a second, then responded in English that wasn't as heavily accented as Leo would have suspected. "I see. Tourists. That's fine, I don't get many visitors anyway. Why have you come to my store?" He paused before adding, "You are demigods, not monsters, so I can trust you."

Leo could tell the guy was doing his best with the whole host thing, but Leo wasn't exactly feeling welcome. He felt like he was bothering the man, interrupting whatever he was working on in that back room. "Are you Ilmarinen?" Leo pronounced the name as best he could.

The large man nodded. "I am. Have you heard of me? I was quite famous, once."

Leo shook his head. "Nah, man, I'm not from around here." Ilmarinen seemed disappointed. "But," Leo continued, trying not to distract the great man from the real reason Leo was there, "I do know that you're a blacksmith-slash-mechanic kinda guy, which means you're just the person I'm looking for. Do you make house-calls?"

"No," Ilmarinen replied. "I do not leave the Forge. Not until the _Sampo_ has been perfected."

"What's a _Sampo_?" Leo asked curiously, wishing the man wasn't taking up all of the doorway. Leo wanted to see what he had been working on. "Is that, like, Estonian shampoo or something?"

"_Nyet!_" Ilmarinen bellowed suddenly. Leo made a mental note not to ask this guy about hair products in the future.

Ilmarinen moved behind the counter, sitting down heavily on an old stool that creaked beneath his weight. Leo was afraid it was going to break, but it stayed together. "I have been working on the _Sampo_ for many years. In the past I have managed to perfect it, but it was created under circumstances I cannot recall. Everything I create can only be destroyed lest the darkness in its heart take over the great machine."

"Aw, man," Leo sympathized, "that sucks. I know just how it feels to sacrifice something like that. It's the _worst_." And it really was. Leo didn't know if there was anything that hurt more than putting down a good machine. He had died and come back to life and still it was the worst feeling. And Festus was still waiting, so Leo could't let him down again.

But Ilmarinen seemed dedicated to his shampoo or whatever, so Leo wasn't going to get anything out of him.

"It is certainly the worst. Sadly, there is no one for whom I can build it. People pass every day and yet my shop remains empty. The _Sampo_ was to be built for someone else. Perhaps that is the true issue with my work." The great man studied Leo and Calypso. "Why is it you are here, exactly?"

Leo tried to make eye contact with the man. It was hard to see past his extravagant beard, but Leo managed. "We came to ask you for spare parts. One of my—my _machines_ is in need of some serious repairs. We really need to get home, but without this machine we can't leave. Is there anything you have that can help us?"

Ilmarinen brightened, his beady eyes sparkling with delight. "The _Sampo!_ The great gods have sent me a purpose at last!" He rejoiced, leaping from his seat and stomping back to the doorway, squeezing through the opening and disappearing inside. Curious, Leo followed, Calypso trailing cautiously behind him.

The first thing Leo noticed about the room was how annoyingly _hot_ it was. He was sweating by the time he passed through the door. It was also pretty cramped for a blacksmith's workshop with an enormous metal stove taking up most of the space. It's door was open and it radiated the heat of a volcano. Fire swirled angrily inside, wanting to escape but restrained by some invisible force. Inside, Leo could just make out a lump of metal, melting like ice cream in the summer. It shifted, trying to reshape itself, and then lost form again. It seemed indecisive, if metal could be indecisive. Sometimes it inflated, growing in size before shrinking back down, as if changing its mind. It looked molten red in its ultra-heated state, but Leo suspected it was gold.

"This is the Forge," Ilarminen announced proudly, bustling about the small room, occasionally stoking the flames. They responded to his presence, and inside the gold lump began to reform itself. "Soon, the metal will take a new form, and, gods be willing, it will finally be the piece it was destined to be." He turned to Leo, nodding at him as if Leo had already agreed to take it. "If it takes its pure form, then it will bring great luck, and the darkness inside of the magic will subside. If not, it will be corrupt and dangerous."

Leo glanced at the lump of metal as it grew in size. He had dealt with corrupt and dangerous before. In fact, if Leo had to choose two words to describe the monsters he dealt with on a near daily basis, he would definitely choose corrupt and dangerous. So hearing Ilmarinen call his magic good-luck metal "corrupt and dangerous" didn't really surprise Leo. However, it did put him on edge. He didn't want to do anything that would endanger him and Calypso, but he needed to fix Festus as soon as possible. He needed to see his friends, needed to let them know he was okay.

"How long 'til it's done baking in there?" Leo asked, wiping sweat from his forehead. He knew better than anyone that you couldn't rush perfection, but that thing had been a molten ball of gold for years according to what Ilmarinen said. Leo certainly wasn't going to wait twenty more years for some metal bits and pieces.

"The _Sampo_ is a tricky machine," Ilmarinen confessed, gazing into the fire. "It takes a new form each night, and each night I must destroy it and rebuild it anew. Evening is upon us, so the Forge must revive it soon. But it still has time. For now, all we can do is wait."

Silence engulfed the room except for the crackling of the compressed inferno. Staring into its light, Leo suppressed a shudder. That same light had burned inside of him not long ago. It was what saved the world, saved his friends. It was the same light that killed him.

Leo pulled his eyes away from the fire. He wasn't used to the lack of impending danger. The war was over. Calypso was out of Ogygia. They were on the move back to the United States and still he couldn't rest. The hard part was over, but Leo just wasn't used to that yet. He was fidgety again, no longer sobered by the thought of one day finding Calypso. His hands tapped on his knees and he caught himself glancing around the Forge as if searching for an escape. Something about this place gave him bad vibes. Calypso must have sensed them too. She shifted from foot to foot, staring at the fire as if it was the source of the weird feeling.

Meanwhile, Ilmarinen stoked the flames, mumbling to himself and scratching his beard, oblivious to the negativity in the room.

"Why did you come here?" Ilmarinen asked, which confused Leo. Hadn't he just said they came for dragon parts?

"Uh, my dragon broke down mid-flight and we need some metal?" he said cautiously, growing suspicious.

"No," Ilmarinen corrected. "I mean why did you come _here?_ To this country, this continent? The Greeks do not leave the west unless there is unrest in the world, and a goddess and a demigod are an obvious sign of trouble. You will certainly need the _Sampo_."

"Oh," Leo said. "Oh, no, there's no more trouble. We took care of all of that a while ago. Like, maybe a day ago? Or two?" He exchanged a glance with Calypso, who shrugged. She didn't know anything more than he did.

Ilmarinen shook his head. "There is _always_ trouble," he grunted, then he turned around to stoke the fire.

What the heck? Leo wish he knew anything about this guy. He seemed like a god, but Leo got the sense that wasn't it. A monster? That would explain the eerie feeling. But that didn't seem to fit either . . .

A hand fell lightly on his shoulder, almost making Leo jump. He turned to find Calypso's conflicted eyes, amber depths swirling with suspicion. She nodded her head to the side, pulling him away from the blacksmith.

"Leo, this isn't good." Calypso murmured, eyes flicking to the great man distrustfully.

"No kidding," Leo replied. "This guy's giving me the heebie-jeebies. Did you see that statue with the eyes? They practically followed us through the store!"

Calypso shook her head. "No, I don't think he means any harm. I think . . ." She trailed off, eyes sliding over to Ilmarinen again. Leo glanced back at him. He was still poking at the _Sampo_.

Leo turned back to Calypso. "What? What is it?"

She met his eyes again. "I—I'm not sure. But he is definitely . . . not Greek."

Leo scoffed. "I got that much, sweetheart. I mean, we _are_ in Estonia."

Calypso rolled her eyes. "_No._ I mean he isn't _Greek_, as in 'of the Greek gods.' He doesn't seem Roman either though, but I have not had enough experience with them to really judge."

Leo nodded. "Yeah, I don't think he's Roman. Trust me, I've been around enough of them to tell." Behind them, Ilmarinen lowered his stoker with a heavy clang.

They turned around as he called to them. "The _Sampo_ has been completed. Come and take a look."

Leo and Calypso shuffled around him. The metal was out of the fire now and Leo was absolutely unimpressed. A regularly-sized golden wrench sat on the stone table, steaming slightly as it cooled. It was probably the least significant thing he had ever seen.

"What's that supposed to be?" he scoffed.

Ilmarinen scowled. "It is the _Sampo_, in the form it has decided to take."

Leo really didn't think a golden wrench was going to help them much at all. "Sorry man, but I came for materials for my dragon, not tools. I don't think some magical wrench is going to solve my problems."

"No," Ilmarinen insisted. "No, the_ Sampo_ is right. This is just what you will need. Now go, fix your machine. Hurry, before the sun of the next day rises."

Leo didn't know why this guy was suddenly shoving them out his door, why he needed to fix Festus before sunrise, or why he needed some smoking golden wrench to do it. But _dang,_ that was one good-looking wrench. Taking a closer look, Leo noted the detailed craftsmanship and the way it glittered in the dying firelight of the forge. Sure, gold wasn't the _best_ metal for heavy-duty repairs, but he got the feeling this would work just fine.

He picked the wrench up carefully. It was still really hot, but not hot enough to burn Leo's skin. It fit just right in his hand, like it had been made for him or something. Calypso fidgeted beside him as he touched it, but nothing really bad happened. The look in her eyes held a warning that Leo couldn't decipher, but suddenly he was really eager to leave the store.

"Alright," he said finally. "We're gonna get going. Thanks a bunch, Ilmarneren or however you say it. We'll take good care of your wrench!"

"It's Ilmarinen," the blacksmith called. "And come back soon! Tell your friends about me! I will always have some good metal birds in stock! They make good souvenirs!"

Leo and Calypso left quickly, the eyes of the sculptures following them out. As soon as they made it out onto the street, Leo felt like a heavy weight had been lifted from his shoulders. His lungs cleared—he hadn't noticed he had been having trouble breathing.

"That went . . . surprisingly well." he muttered, looking back at the old shack. The streets were quiet, the sky was clear. It was a beautiful evening, and in the distance Leo could hear the waves of the bay crashing against the shore.

They turned and started off towards the direction they suspected they had left Festus in. Calypso glared down at the wrench in Leo's hands. "I don't like tha—"

She was cut off as an explosion from behind them threw them both to the ground forcefully. The wrench clattered out of Leo's hands, but the idea was pushed to the back of his quickly dimming thoughts. His ears were ringing and Calypso was nowhere in his sight. The last thing he saw before he blacked out completely was Ilmarinen's Forge in flames, the old wooden sign crumbling to the ground.

**_A/N: _**_Hey, sorry about the long wait for such a short crappy chapter. I have literally zero muse right now and I'm honestly just trying to fill my boring family vacation time. Alright, I'll post a better chapter soon, I promise! Probably going to be a different perspective though. I don't have any in mind, so if you want to vote in the reviews I don't mind._

_-Terra_


End file.
